


Scream a Gale, Become a Self

by Lightbulbs



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: (just a bit), Book 03: Oathbringer Spoilers, Canon Speculation, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, Shadesmar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 11:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21098603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightbulbs/pseuds/Lightbulbs
Summary: Syl makes the decision to bond with Kaladin.[Set before The Way of Kings, with a few details from Oathbringer]





	Scream a Gale, Become a Self

Part of Syl knew that it was foolish to want to leave Shadesmar. She’d been forbidden by the Stormfather, chastised by the other honorspren. When her father had found her, still unmoored from her severed Nahel bond, she was a broken thing. She’d been lucky to come out of the Recreance unscathed, with only the death of her bondmate to leave her scarred.

And yet the other part of her, the part that longed to fly free? It didn’t care. It saw past the pain to untold possibilities.

_ Honor, make way _ _  
_ _ Herald a light _

Once, Notum had taken her to see a deadeye in the Honor Sanatorium. There weren’t many honorspren left; most had succumbed to their deadeyed state, breaking down into elemental spren.

“Ancient Daughter,” said Notum, pointing towards the deadeye. “This could have been you.”

The deadeye looked at her, though she could sense no emotion behind its blank stare. It was gauzy at the edges, barely able to form, with smears of shifting light where the eyes should be. For a moment, Syl felt afraid. Then her fear turned to annoyance.

_ They’re treating me like a child, _ she thought. _ I can make my own decisions. _

“But it wasn’t,” she replied. She left the sanatorium, ignoring Notum’s protests.

_ Brighten, darken, brighten _

_ This man is of Honor, _Syl thought.

She’d heard his call, and each day, she watched him. Everything he did spoke of a deep, abiding respect for those around him. It was captivating.

He was a soldier, as evidenced by the uniform he wore. Humans could be so resistant to change! His outfit reminded her of the ones worn by those who’d taken up swords and spears a millennium ago.

It wasn’t just the outfit, either: he handled a weapon with an almost uncanny ability. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he’d bonded with a spren. When he fought, his movements were light and precise, like air currents.

The man protected those in his care, particularly the youngest soldiers. There was kindness in his dark, rich eyes. It reminded her of her old bondmate, and that hurt, a little. But that ache was dulled by a thousand years of sleep.

The stormwinds foretold calamity. With each highstorm, the Listeners’ songs were full of ominous portents. Roshar would likely see a new Desolation soon. Perhaps the greatest Desolation.

Syl couldn’t take it anymore.

_ I must go, _she thought.

_ Light, a Herald _ _  
_ _ Ways make honor _

It wasn’t hard to leave. Painful, yes. Literally soul-destroying, in fact. But hard? No.

Syl left Lasting Integrity, heading to the very ends of Shadesmar. Her intentions were pure and clear, like westerly winds catching a sail and leading a boat to port. Like the cleansing rains of a highstorm, and the green plants rising up from the rain-soaked ground.

The Desolations would come. Of this she was certain. The man’s call was too strong to ignore. She had to be there, not just for him, but for Roshar.

Most spren would have disagreed with her; they’d likely see little point in helping the oathbreakers of old. But to remain trapped in the honorspren city, stagnant and useless and _ bored, _ would kill Syl just as much as becoming a deadeye.

She entered into the Physical Realm, and she felt herself shattering, her body becoming little more than light held together with pain. She screamed a gale, and then—

_ wind light air _

The spren felt off, somehow.

Sometimes there was an odd ache, a twinge that some part of it recognized as loss. Those aching moments were flashes of time that blew by as fast it did, riding the air currents that swirled above Roshar, delighting in the bellows of the Stormfather’s steady storms.

Sometimes the spren thought the Stormfather seemed a little sad, his gaze fixed on it as if he _ knew _it. Did he? What a strange idea.

Then the thought evaporated, and the spren would laugh and laugh, playing a never-ending game of tag with the other windspren streaking past.

_ storms and sighs and gusts _

One day, the spren flew down. It had been curious at the commotion below, where figures were moving back and forth on the crem-covered ground. It flew in close to see a man with dark hair and dark eyes, lean and tall.

With a start, the spren realized something. “Man”? Where had that word come from? This was something new.

The spren understood. “Man,” a human being, something different from spren.

“Spren”?

The spren spun around, becoming a ribbon of light that exploded into a flickering pulse of blues and whites. Spren! That’s what she was! She wasn’t just an existence. She had a self!

The thought made her laugh. She spun again, this time in a dizzying arc down towards the man, watching him as he talked with other men wearing strange outfits. She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but the novelty of her discovery made her bubble over with joy.

Another idea struck her. She zipped by the man’s hand, forcing it to stick to the wall he leaned against. He tugged, trying to unstick it.

The spren giggled and flew off.

_ spears for fighting, soldiers for peace _

Time passed, and the spren realized that this moment, this _ now, _ came after something _before, _like something from the aching times she didn’t think about.

The images of before, what were they called? The word came to her as she flew past the battlefields, staring down at the tall man in the uniform jacket. He had a hollow look on his face, and the dirt around him was stained with blood. One of those bulky soldiers, the ones wearing the armor made of dead spren, lay sprawled at his feet.

_ Memory, _she thought, floating beside him. Even now, she felt his pull. She seemed to gravitate towards him.

She had memories of things she’d done, seen, been. Life wasn’t just fickle wind, never blowing the same way twice. Things could be done, over and over, different and yet the same.

What did that mean, though? The spren still laughed, still played her tricks, but that twinge, that ache she somehow knew as “loss,” grew larger inside her heart.

The loss grew larger still as the man left the battlefields in irons.

_Do something, when all is lost_

The spren watched the man, Kaladin, the one she’d followed from battlefield to slave wagon. He looked more worn than she’d ever seen him. His hair tangled around his face, and his skin was covered in grime.

Words came to her faster these days. “Slave,” a man without freedom. “Wagon,” a boxy collection of wheels and bars, filled with men far smellier and dirtier than the soldiers Kaladin had been with before.

Memory was still an elusive concept, but as long as she stayed near Kaladin, the world grew sharper.

Still, something was wrong. This man had once held a vitality so strong, she’d been unable to resist following him. While his pull was still there, like a buffeting wind, each day, the roar lessened.

_Who bears this broken soul?_

Could spren worry?

The spren had been following Kaladin, watching him grow duller and duller each time he was thrown back into a slave wagon. She could feel herself losing her self. The man had _something _to do with it, she just knew it.

With the blue moon overhead, the wagons had stopped for the night. One of the men driving the wagons was passing out water. Men needed water, she knew. That was important. Kaladin was probably thirsty. Would that help him feel better?

She watched him from a nearby boulder. He kept rubbing a small black leaf between his fingers, and his eyes looked haunted.

_What is he doing?_

The spren was tired of waiting from the sidelines. It had been months since she’d followed Kaladin. This was as bad as Lasting Integrity.

She paused. _Wait, w__hat is—_

But the thought dissipated, one of those fleeting memories from the aching times.

She blinked. _I can’t just sit around, _she thought. She flew down to the wagon, zipping between the bars. She climbed inside to stand near Kaladin, appearing as a tiny woman in a blue-white dress.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He didn’t respond, even though she knew he could see her. How frustrating!

Well, she knew the power of words now. A proper name could do wondrous things. “Kaladin, why must you ignore me?” she asked, floating beside him to look him in the eye.

His response was gratifying, a sputtering messy jumble of words and gestures that was so human, so unlike a spren that it made her want to laugh. But he didn’t answer her question. He seemed more interested in how she knew who he was.

“Why do you care, spirit?” he asked.

_ Why indeed, _she wondered. That was the question, wasn't it?

A burst of excitement went through her, bright as a sphere glowing in the darkest night. That _was _the question! One that tugged at her ever since she first realized she was a spren.

_Who is this man, _she thought, _and why do I care?_

She decided: she would stay beside Kaladin until she found out.


End file.
